


California, Here We Come

by gagewhitney



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 18:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gagewhitney/pseuds/gagewhitney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This place is amazing. I am never, ever leaving."</p>
            </blockquote>





	California, Here We Come

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what happened here or how this got to be so long. Also, thank you everyone for the awesome reviews on my first two TMP fics!

Mindy sets out a tray of Girl Scout cookies on her desk.

"So, I'm sure you're wondering why I've called this partners meeting today."

"Not really," Danny says. "We have like two a week."

Jeremy nods in agreement. "I just figured it was someone's birthday soon."

"Okay, well, this isn't that," she says. "Guys, the Santa Barbara conference is this weekend and we haven't decided who's going yet." She nudges the tray forward a bit and composes herself, preparing for an argument. "Now, as –"

Jeremy raises his hand. "I'll stay."

Mindy and Danny cut their eyes to each other before turning back to him.

"Really?" she asks, slightly suspicious. "Just like that? No argument? No three-way game of rock-paper-scissors?"

"I've got some business to attend to this weekend anyway," he explains. "It's not a problem, really."

Mindy glances at Danny again, who simply shrugs and reaches for a Samoa. "All right, then, I guess thanks, Jeremy. Meeting adjourned, guys."

As Jeremy leaves, Danny stands in front of her desk, chewing on the cookie. "You want to book the plane or should I?"

"I have an appointment in…" She looks quickly at her watch. "Ten minutes. Can you just do it?"

"Yeah, that's fine." He grabs two more cookies and turns to leave, stopping at the door to add, "Split a cab to the airport?"

"Duh." She bites into a Thin Mint.

 

 

He shows up a full twenty minutes early on Friday morning.

"Geez, what's with you, man?" She watches him roll his suitcase into her apartment. "You said seven!"

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he says, "I don't want to miss our flight."

"I think we'll be –"

"Because there's all the TSA stuff, and if we miss it we'll have to –"

"Okay, chill out. We're not going to miss the flight." She sighs and waves a hand at her couch. "Just hang out for a few minutes, okay?"

Mindy heads for her bedroom. Danny follows.

Upon seeing her suitcase opened on the bed, clothes strewn haphazardly around it, he throws his hands up. "Oh, come on, you're still packing?"

She rolls her eyes at him. "Danny, calm down. I'm dressed. I've got most of my stuff packed. I'm just making a few last-minute decisions."

"Like?"

She reaches into the pile of clothes and comes up with two dresses on hangers, holding them up in front of her.

"Okay, so, we've got the cocktail-reception-networking thing tonight. Which one of these dresses says, 'I'm a professional, but I'm also fun and relatable, like someone you'd want to feature in magazines and/or use as a consultant for television and movies'?"

He stares blankly at her, and she shakes the dresses at him.

With a deep sigh, he points to the sparkly silver dress in her left hand. "That one."

"Excellent choice! I was kind of leaning toward that one anyway." She removes it from the hanger and packs it away before bending to retrieve two different high-heeled shoes from the floor. "Now, which pair of shoes?"

Danny scrubs a hand over his face. "I don't know. The black ones."

She scrunches up her nose. "Really? I don't know, I kind of think –"

"Okay, I did my part. You have anything to eat?" Without waiting for an answer, he turns and walks out of her bedroom. "Hurry up!" he calls over his shoulder.

Mindy regards the two shoes with a frown. His choice – basic black kitten heels – are at least comfortable, if not a little boring. The satiny blue stilettos, on the other hand, are gorgeous, but they're really more of a sitting-down shoe.

Chewing her lip, she glances over to the open door and sees his suitcase in the hallway, unattended and, if she knows him, probably not filled up all the way. Jackpot.

She stuffs the black pair of shoes into her bag and zips it up before quietly padding out to the hall. With one eye on Danny eating something out of her refrigerator, she quickly unzips his luggage and slips the second pair inside.

She closes the bag back up and darts back into her bedroom to grab her suitcase and roll it out into the hallway. Briefly, she considers how odd their things look sitting next to each other, his beat-up black Samsonite somewhat out of place next to her stylish Louis Vuitton.

"Okay!" she announces. "I'm all set!" She stops with her hands on her hips and watches him. "What are you doing?"

There's a jar of olives in his hand, the refrigerator door propped open with his body. "I'm hungry," he mumbles, stuffing another olive in his mouth.

"It is seven in the morning, so, gross, and those are for martinis!"

He rolls his eyes and replaces the jar. "I'll buy you more when we get back." Spotting the addition of her bag in the hallway, he says, "Cab'll be here any minute. Can we go now?"

She puts on a faux-sweet smile. "Waiting for you, sweetheart."

He grumbles under his breath.

 

 

They manage to get to the airport and through security without a hassle. On the plane, waiting for takeoff without her phone to keep her occupied, she brings up the thing that's been lingering in the back of her mind since the meeting.

"Can you believe Jeremy didn't even put up a fight?" she says incredulously. "I mean, what's so important that he'd actually volunteer to cover the office rather than go to California for the weekend?"

He shrugs, leafing through a copy of SkyMall. "I think it's not so much what as it is who."

"Wait, what? Is he seeing someone?" She smacks his arm to get him to look at her. "Dish, Castellano!"

"You seriously haven't noticed." It's a statement, not a question.

"Noticed what? Do I know her?"

Danny smirks. "Oh yeah."

When he doesn't say anything else, she pinches his thigh.

"Ow! Geez."

"Tell me!" she demands.

"Betsy." Off her blank look, he nods his head in the affirmative.

Mindy's jaw drops. "Are you serious? Jeremy and Betsy? Our Betsy?"

"Yep."

"For how long?"

"I don't know, but I've known a couple of weeks." A pause, and then, quietly, "I caught them in the office one night."

"Doing what?" she breathes.

He looks over at her and just stares.

Her eyes go wide. "Oh my God. Seriously?" He nods, and she wonders, "How could they keep that a secret?" She punches his arm. "And how could you not tell me? You big jerk!"

"Ow! Come on." He rubs his arm. "It wasn't any of my business. And they probably didn't want to tell you themselves because of… you know."

"What?"

"That whole thing where you were in love with him."

"Ugh, I was not –"

"You were in love with him for a long time," he says matter-of-factly. "We all knew."

"Okay, you know what? That's not important right now." She tries to steer the conversation back to where it was. "Just, wow. I mean, I didn't know Betsy had it in her."

"Mm-hmm."

She twists slightly and grabs his arm. "Oh my God, Danny. What if they got married? Can you even?"

"I can't even," he says flatly, turning back to SkyMall.

"I mean, I hired Betsy, so I basically introduced them." She grins at him. "Do you think they'd let me give a speech?"

He glances up at her briefly. "Well, if we know anything, it's that you giving speeches at your exes' weddings has worked out well in the past."

Mindy considers this for a moment. "This is different."

"Mm-hmm."

With a huff, she settles back into her seat. "Danny, you sound like you don't even care about this."

"I don't." He points at the catalog. "Hey, check this out. A clock that's also a wall safe."

She rolls her eyes and turns to stare out the window.

 

 

It's a long flight.

Danny points out every semi-interesting item in SkyMall, and they argue back and forth about whether or not it'd actually be a viable purchase. Mindy makes a serious note to order the smoothie and soft-serve ice cream makers for the break room.

"Really?" he asks her. "You've already got the chocolate fountain."

"I'm sorry, what's your point?"

He shrugs. "We're a doctor's office. Shouldn't we at least put up the facade of being health-conscious?"

She purses her lips, considering it. "Smoothies are healthy, and we will start using dark chocolate in the fountain," she decides. "And ice cream makes people happy, so, good mental health."

He shakes his head, but hides a smile in his soda can.

On her iPad, she shows him the lookbook she's been working on for him that, despite his protests, includes a number of colorful pocket squares, as well as henleys, motorcycle boots and black boxer-briefs.

"Why…?"

"Just, that morning when you were passed out in your office…" She grimaces. "Tighty whities are not the best look on grown men who are not secretly thirteen years old like Tom Hanks in Big."

He blinks and, for lack of anything else, says, "Okay."

She grins. "Great! So we'll go shopping when we get back."

"I think I can buy my own underpants."

"Don't say 'underpants,' please."

"What?"

"You sound so much like an old man, Danny."

He rolls his eyes. "Says the person who wants me to wear pocket squares."

"Ugh!" she cries. "They are coming back. Don't sit there and pretend you know what's in, like you were at Fashion Week or something."

"And you were?"

"I follow the Fug Girls on Twitter, okay? I'm good."

 

 

It takes about ten minutes for her to declare, "I am officially in love with this hotel."

He walks beside her, rolling his suitcase down the hall. "It's pretty swanky," he agrees, eyeing the ascending numbers on the doors. He stops and points. "This is us."

Their rooms are right next to each other, situated near the end of the long hallway. Mindy does a quick walkthrough, checking out the fancy shower and the deep dresser drawers and the super expensive mini bar, before going over to knock on the door connecting her space to Danny's.

"Danny!" she cries when he steps aside, letting her through. "How sick are these rooms? Did you see the shower? And, ooh – we get free robes!"

He grins at her enthusiasm. "You check out the view?"

"No, I was too distracted by all those showerheads!" She crosses the room to the large window and looks out at the sun hanging low over the Pacific Ocean. "Oh my God. This place is amazing. I am never, ever leaving."

Danny drops onto the mattress and watches her. "We do have the Atlantic Ocean at home, you know."

"Not the same," she sighs. She turns back to face him. "All right, so, we have about two hours until we have to be downstairs."

"Okay." He stretches his arms over his head. "I think I'm going to get a quick nap before I shower."

"Do you want me to come over and wake you up?"

"I think I'll be fine."

"Just don't oversleep and forget to shower, because then I'll have to walk around with you looking like a hot mess all night." He rolls his eyes, and she continues. "Now, before I go, show me what you're wearing."

He groans.

"Danny!"

Realizing that it's pointless to argue with her sometimes, he goes to his suitcase and unzips it, flipping it open. Immediately, he finds her extra pair of shoes stuck in amongst his clothes and lifts them out, letting the heels dangle from his fingertips.

"Well, I wouldn't wear those," she jokes.

"Did you seriously hide shoes in my suitcase?"

"I couldn't decide, okay?"

"What if security had made me open my bag?"

Mindy grins. "That would've been funny, actually."

Shaking his head, he hands them over before pulling a pair of charcoal slacks and a slate blue shirt out of his suitcase. He holds them up for her approval.

She nods. "Nice. I'm glad you told me to bring the silver dress; we'll go together." Frowning, she asks, "Where's your jacket?"

"In the bag."

"Ugh, give it to me before it gets too wrinkled."

He pulls it out and hands it to her, watching as she goes to the closet and hangs it up. She looks it over and smoothes out the wrinkles as she mutters something about men.

He sighs. "All right, are you satisfied now?"

Mindy rolls her eyes and stalks back to the connecting door. "Two hours, Castellano!"

 

 

One hour and fifty minutes later, she's knocking incessantly on his door.

"Hey! Are you ready?!"

He opens the door while tucking his shirt into his suit pants. "You're a little early."

"Yeah, that's right. How's it feel?"

"Great, actually. I'm impressed." He eyes her appraisingly. "You look nice."

Mindy smiles happily. "Thanks, Danny." She looks him over, frowns, and reaches up to touch his hair. He ducks away from her hand. "I'm trying to fix it!"

Relenting, he stands still and lets her comb her fingers through his short, dark hair, smoothing it in spots and fluffing it in others. When she's satisfied, she stands back and surveys her work.

"So?"

"Very good," she says. "Handsome."

He nods a thank you. "Good to go?"

"Yep."

They're barely into the hallway when she teeters a bit on her shoes, grabbing his arm quickly for support. Danny looks down at the skinny blue heels and back at her.

"Do not say anything," she warns.

He puts his hands in the air. "Who, me? Wouldn't dream of it."

 

 

An hour into the cocktail reception, she finds him standing near the bar by himself, a glass of scotch in his hand as he surveys the room.

"You know the whole point of these things is to mingle with people, right?"

He sips at his drink. "Yeah. I hate that."

Mindy shakes her head at him and takes a seat on an empty bar stool. "Well, I met a guy from L.A. who delivered Jessica Alba's babies." She touches his forearm to fully convey the importance of such a thing. "Jessica Alba, Danny."

"Who?"

She racks her brain for a reference he'll understand. "She was the only female character in Fantastic Four."

He shrugs. "Okay."

"Anyway, he told me his practice caters almost exclusively to wealthy, famous women, and that he'd keep an eye out for anyone looking for a good OB-GYN in New York."

"Fantastic," he says dryly. "You gave him your card?"

"Yeah. Who knows? Shulman and Associates might become the next big name in celebrity births in the city!" She frowns and adds, "Okay, we should probably change our name to something sexier."

"Yeah, okay. We'll have a meeting about it when we get back."

She taps her nails on the bar. "I'm sensing sarcasm, but since I'm feeling so good right now, I'm going to let it slide."

"Oh, good." He takes a seat beside her and gestures toward the empty glass in her hand. "You want another drink?"

"Ugh, please. Midori Sour." She grimaces. "I need to dull the pain from these shoes."

He glances down at her feet. "I told you… should've worn the black ones."

"Well, these were cuter, so."

Shaking his head, he flags down the bartender. "Midori Sour." After a beat, he adds, "Uh, not for me. For her."

Mindy smiles at him. "What, you don't want the bartender to think you drink bright green cocktails?"

"Not really, no."

She watches while her drink is mixed. "So, what do you want to do after this?"

"After this?" She nods, and he shrugs. "I don't know, go up to my room and go to bed?"

She lets her jaw drop, faux-outraged. "Danny!" she says teasingly. "Who knew you were so forward!"

"Uh, yeah, not what I meant," he assures her. He turns to his drink and takes a long sip rather than look at her.

She rolls her eyes at him. "Duh. Come on." She pokes her index finger into his forearm until he looks at her. "What is your problem? Lighten up, man! We're in freaking California. It is thirty degrees in New York right now. Can't you at least pretend to have a good time?"

"I'm not… not having a good time."

The bartender puts the drink in front of her, and she takes a long sip.

"You know, if only stupid Jeremy weren't interested in stupid Betsy, maybe he'd be here, and he'd want to hang out with me. Who knows, maybe I'd even get to have some awesome hotel sex." Danny almost chokes on his drink, and she continues, ignoring him. "And then you could be at home, like, training carrier pigeons or whatever it is you do for fun."

Danny stares at the bar and sighs heavily. "All right, I guess we could watch something on TV," he offers. "I'm tired, but if you really want to hang out tonight, that'd be okay."

"Oh." She brightens a bit. "Really?"

He waves his hand toward her feet. "Yeah, I mean, because your feet hurt, right? You could give them a break? Just… sit, for a while?"

She smiles at him. "You know what, that'd be great, actually."

"No Housewives, though."

"But Danny!"

"I'm drawing the line."

 

 

"I'm amending my statement," he tells her. "Nothing at all on Bravo."

"Ugh, fine. Although I maintain that you would like Jeff Lewis," she tells him. "You're both grumpy and sarcastic."

She's made herself at home in his room, lying on her stomach on the bed, remote in hand, wearing a pair of leggings with a roomy t-shirt and her complimentary robe. Danny paces around near the window clad in running shorts and a t-shirt, unsure of where to put himself.

"Stop dancing around, man. You're making me nervous," she crows, twisting herself to look at him. "Would you sit down, please? I promise you won't get cooties or inappropriately touched or whatever it is you're worried about."

He rolls his eyes, but sits himself down on the opposite side of the mattress, leaning up against the headboard. He watches her flip continuously through the channels.

"How did you even get control of the remote?"

"Because you're slow, old man. Also because you chose to go and change after I came in here." She gasps suddenly. "Oh! Look! Notting Hill!"

"Nope."

"Danny," she whines. "They almost never play this on TV anymore. I think people have forgotten how charming Hugh Grant can be."

"No way. Veto. Keep going."

With a small sound of disgust, she moves on.

"Commercial. Commercial. Legally Blonde?" She looks back at him, and he just stares. "Commercial. Gross guys in a… marsh? Ick."

"Swamp People. I like that show!"

"Veto. Commercial. Infomercial. Ooh, Chris Pine!" she cries, stopping again. She furrows her brow. "What movie is this?"

"I don't know," he says, "but it's got Denzel and a train. No one's falling in love here. Looks like a winner to me."

She rolls her eyes, but relents and moves to settle against the pillows beside him, tucking her legs under her body. "Okay, but only because it's Chris Pine."

 

 

It's way too early and way too bright when she stirs the next morning.

For a few moments before her brain catches up, she isn't sure where she is; then she realizes that her cheek is smushed against Danny's shoulder and he's slumped over beside her, his dead weight leaning against her heavily.

"Um…" she tries, her voice small. "Danny?"

She rubs his arm and tries to sit up a little. The movement causes his body to shift with her, and he unconsciously spoons himself against her side with a sleepy sigh. He slides an arm around her middle, his hand slipping beneath her robe to curl his fingers in her t-shirt, and Mindy freezes at the unexpected contact.

"Danny."

"Hmm?"

"Um, it's Mindy." She pokes the arm stretched across her a few times. "Hey. Wake up, dude."

Danny's eyes blink open, and when he fully understands what he's doing, he quickly pushes himself off of her.

"Sorry," he mumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

She tries to make a joke out of it. "Geez, first you say want to go to bed, and then you go ahead and… wake up on top of me." She laughs nervously. "You know, if I didn't know any better –"

"It's too early to hear which movie this is like," he interrupts, his voice sounding even creakier than usual. He gets out of bed with a groan and stretches, his back popping with the effort.

Mindy watches him and thinks about it. "Actually, this is like all of them, I think."

He shakes his head and walks away from the bed. "Come on, get up. We have to go to that breakfast thing downstairs." He pauses at the bathroom door and gives her a look. "Unless you're planning on showing off that impressive bedhead look you've got going on."

Self-consciously, she touches the rat's nest that has become her hair and frowns. "I will see you in half an hour."

He ducks into the bathroom and she mutters, "So much for that trope."

 

 

Breakfast is shorter than she'd like, mostly spent listening to boring speeches while they chug coffee and she spears pieces of fruit off a large plate in the middle of the table. Danny nods in agreement when she whispers that she thought there'd at least be Belgian waffles.

"I mean, come on," she says. "What the hell."

They don't get too much time to reflect on the lack of waffles, though, since the conferences begin immediately following breakfast and are scheduled to go until dinner, with several conferences on different topics taking place concurrently in meeting rooms around the hotel.

They're signed up for the first one together, thankfully, and Mindy takes copious notes to make up for the fact that Danny just sits there with his arms crossed, absorbing what the speaker is saying.

"You're like that annoying kid in school who never wrote anything down and still got an A," she whisper-yells at him.

"Jealous?"

"Of you? As if."

Occasionally, she doodles in the margins of her yellow legal pad – hearts, flowers, transparent cubes. Danny watches her out of the corner of his eye. When he gets bored enough, he drags the pad closer, steals her pen, and starts a game of Hangman.

He gets to the body, the arms and a leg before she figures out "WHEN DOOFUS MET DUMMY" and elbows him in the side.

 

 

They split up just before lunch and don't see each other again until dinner in the hotel restaurant that night.

"So the guy says, 'Well, when you pull that thing out, it better have some numbers on it.'"

Mindy makes a face. "Ew. Who told you that joke?"

"I don't know, some old guy who started talking to me at the pharmaceutical conference."

"It's not even funny," she says. "It's mostly just gross and sexist."

"Now do you see why I hate mingling at these things?" He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stress ball shaped like an ovary. "Speaking of the pharmaceutical thing, I brought you back something."

"Oh, yay! I love these." She takes it from him, squeezes it and admits, "Okay, this one's actually a little weird."

He nods and picks at his salad. She slips the stress ovary into her bag.

"Well, while you were picking up dirty jokes and anatomical stress balls, I had a very interesting conversation with Dr. Trager at the HIPAA conference."

"Who?"

"Jessica Alba's doctor."

"Right. How could I forget?"

"Anyway, we got to talking, and he said that he read up on me after we met last night and was very impressed." She grins, clearly proud of herself. "He actually asked if I would come out to L.A. to see his practice some time. It sounds like a really cool place."

"To visit, or… to work?"

She shrugs and takes a bite of her salad.

Danny eyes her warily. "What did you say?"

"I said I'd think about it." She sighs. "I mean, can you imagine? Me – a celebrity doctor! Oh my God, what if I got a reality show? I already know the title: 'LA-OB-GYN.'"

He ignores the comments on her celebrity and focuses on one aspect of her story. "So you'd be leaving New York."

The surprisingly hurt tone of his voice makes her falter, and she looks down at her plate with a shrug. "I don't know. I mean, if I was really sold on it, I guess."

"Okay, but I mean, you can't really… right?"

She frowns. "Um, why couldn't I?"

"Because New York is… home."

"Technically, Boston is my home."

"Yeah, but you love the city. It's your dream. I mean, all your stupid movies take place in New York," he says. "Those things never… you don't get that stuff in L.A."

"First of all, I'm not sure how many times I have to say this, but they are not stupid," she tells him. "And second, you never know where you're going to find that stuff – aren't you the one who pretty much told me that?"

He nods, conceding the point. "Okay, so, then, what's the draw with this Dr. Alba? He's, like, a… he's a handsome guy? Is that it?"

"It's Dr. Trager. His patient was Jessica Alba," she tells him. "And, also, just because he's good looking isn't why I was interested, Danny! Geez. Sexist and rude, much?"

He crosses his arms over his chest.

"It's not the only reason, okay? His degree of handsomeness has very little to do with it. I'm just saying, it could be a really great career move."

"So you'd just leave us? Abandon me, and, uh, Jeremy, and the practice?"

"I'm not saying I'm going to do it, it's just something to consider!" she huffs. "Why are you being so weird about this?"

"I'm not being weird."

"Yes, you are," she insists. "It's my life, Danny."

"Yeah, but it's my…"

She stares at him. "What?"

He opens and closes his mouth without saying anything. "You know what?" He sighs heavily. "Never mind. Do whatever you want," he says, and pushes away from the table.

"What are you doing?"

"I think I'm going to head upstairs."

"Danny."

"It's just… it's late."

She looks at her watch. "It's 8:15."

"Jet lag," he says. "And anyway, I need to pack. We have an early flight."

He shoves his hands into his pockets and turns to walk away.

"Wait," she says to his back. "Danny, I –"

"See you in the morning," he calls over his shoulder.

 

 

She's upstairs approximately two minutes after he is, banging on the door separating their two rooms.

"Daniel Castellano, open this door right now!"

"Doing an impression of my mom never did anyone any favors," he shouts back through the wall.

"Stop acting like a child, then!" She waits a few moments and then bangs on the door again. "Danny!"

He wrenches the door open mid-knock and has to duck away from her fist. Mindy gives him a look like she's considering hitting him anyway.

"What?" he grouses.

It's his attitude that really sets her off, then, so she pulls the stress ovary out of her purse and throws it at him, hitting him square in the chest.

"Ow! What the hell is your problem?" he yells.

"What's my problem? What is YOUR problem?" She steps through the open doorway and into his personal space. She pokes him in the chest. "Why do you have to be such a jerk? Why can't you just be happy for me?"

"Because!"

"Wow, it is almost hard to believe you're a doctor with that vocabulary," she spits.

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. "You're a co-partner in our practice, you know. And so now, what, the first good-looking celebrity doctor in a nice climate comes along and you're going to jump ship?"

"Danny," she sighs, pressing her hands together. "If I were to leave – and that's a big, fat if right now, by the way – I would in no way be the first person to ever leave a medical practice. Besides," she tells him, "you guys would be just fine without me."

"Oh, we would?"

"Are you kidding? Yeah." She gestures toward him. "Two young – well, relatively young – and handsome gynecologists? Please. Get yourselves a commercial and you'd give the midwives a run for their money."

"Okay," he says, a little humorless laugh escaping him. He scrubs a hand over his face.

She reaches out to squeeze his forearm reassuringly. "Danny, I promise. Even if I leave, which I'm not saying I'm going to, but even if I did, everything's going to be totally –"

Before she can get the rest of her sentence out, he grabs the back of her neck and pulls her to him, crushing her lips against his. Almost immediately, the hand that'd been gripping his arm slides up his chest as she wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him back.

He bites lightly on her bottom lip, sucking on it until she moans and opens her mouth under his. He deepens the kiss, and she scratches her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling gently in an attempt to bring him closer.

The dresser along the wall is right behind her, so he puts his hands on her hips and walks her forward until she knocks into it with a thud. He starts to apologize, but she licks into his mouth and hitches a leg around his hip, grinding herself against him.

He groans and bucks up against her, one of his arms around her waist while the other supports them against the dresser. Gently, he pushes her backwards a bit so that she's half-sitting and half-leaning on the edge.

Pulling back to look at her, he pushes her legs farther apart and ruts up against her again. Her eyes roll back in her head a little, and she grabs his tie to pull him down to her.

He kisses her lips, down her jaw and neck, and tugs at the front of her blouse as his lips travel lower. Mindy presses herself against him again, rolling her hips.

Danny groans against her skin and pulls himself away. He cups her face with one hand, tucking strands of hair behind her ear, to look at her eyes. "I don't want you to leave New York," he tells her.

"I'm sensing that. Tell me why," she insists.

He searches for the words. "I just…" He sighs, a puff of hot air against her neck. "I like you, okay?"

"Oh, excuse me while I swoon," she teases. "What girl hasn't dreamed of a guy telling her," slipping into her approximation of his voice, "'I'm Danny Castellano. I like you, okay? God. Freakin' broads.'"

He rolls his eyes at her impression of him. "I do, though. You're a great doctor."

"Thank you."

"And you bring a lot to the practice."

She runs her fingers along the front of his shirt. "Mm-hmm."

He sighs. "And you can't leave me alone with Reed. He's like a… big, walking spray tan ad."

"Danny."

"He will put a tanning bed in your office the minute you're out the door."

"Okay, just –"

"It would suck if you weren't there everyday," he blurts out, and she grins. "Okay? I know that's totally selfish, but, you know, whatever."

She grips his shirt and studies his face, pursing her lips. "If I were to stay in New York… I would want to advertise the practice a little more. Everyone needs to see how awesome we are. We can't keep losing patients to those charlatans upstairs."

"Done."

"Also, I think we should seriously ask Dr. Trager to recommend us to people he knows in New York." She presses her finger into his chest. "You make fun, but celebrity mothers would not be a bad niche market to get into."

"Okay," he nods. "You're right. Let's do that."

"And I would need you to consent to watching Notting Hill and whatever other romantic comedies I want without making fun of them the whole time."

"The whole time?" he asks, his expression pained.

"The whole time."

Danny gives her an exaggerated sigh. "If that's what it takes."

She grins. "There's way too much driving there anyway," she decides. "I mean, seriously. Is it so hard to build a decent subway system, Los Angeles?"

His crooked grin stretches across his face. "You still want to have awesome hotel sex?"

Mindy snakes an arm around his neck and leans up to kiss him again. "Hells yeah I do."

 

 

They accidentally miss their flight back home in the morning.

Danny doesn't even care.


End file.
